Reply With Quote1. What size boat
2. What size anchor
Tell us how you do it before being told how to do it.
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Last weekend I lost another 4 pronged reef anchor outside north Stradbroke island and am hoping if some s/e qld fishos could let me know if or how their set ups may work. I'm thinking of trying a Mooloolaba pick next as I see them on a lot of rigs but don't actually know anyone who has one. I do prefer to drift however some spot x's do work better anchored with a good berley trail going. The bending prong type are cheaper to replace but is the mooloolaba pick with the front eye attachment worth the extra coin outlay? Thanks for any feedback
1. What size boat
2. What size anchor
Tell us how you do it before being told how to do it.
Sent from my iPhone using Ausfish forums
My boat is a plate cuddy cab made by Bajcraft around 5.2m and approx 1.2t on the water. My method of retrieving anchors is to drive off in the direction the anchor rope lays out with a ball float running down and lifting the anchor and chain to the surface when free. Been doing this as long as I've been boating and very rarely have problems with picks or plow anchor. I do attach my chain to the front of the plow and cable tie a breakaway to the end in case it snags as I assume can be done with the Mooloolaba pick. I'm really asking if people using Mooloolaba picks would ever go back to using the pronged bending reef anchor set up. Thanks
Hey mate.
I use a mooloolaba pick, as I mostly fish on gravel.
The pronged anchors are a night mare to grab on the gravel, and the Mooloolaba pick is much better.
As as a flip side, it’s very easy to retrieve out of gravel, and rarely break my trips ties.
Cheers
Rob
I mostly anchor up in reef areas. I retrieve the same as you. Drive back up along the rope/chain, using a ball float.
Lost maybe two reef anchors over the years, but I think these were more bad luck with the anchor just getting wedged in to tight with strong current/wind pulling it in tighter.
Good luck with whatever your choice.
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As long as you have the right size reef anchor, you should lose very few, unless you are anchoring on a wreck or something that can "snag" the rope or chain, I reckon in decades of anchoring, I would have lost maybe 2 anchors.
getadog
I do the same with my pronged anchor and chain and also use a ball float with a stainless steel split ring on the warp.
With a heavy Seafarer Vagabond (6.2) I found I could make life much easier by reducing the size of my prong (reef) anchor but still keeping the chain the length of the boat (about 6 m)
I never use my large prong anchor any more and find the small one with the chain holds fine.
Usually one or two of the prongs are well and truly straightened when I get it back to the boat and they just get straightened before the next use.
I suggest you consider a smaller prong (reef) anchor with your usual chain and see how you go with that and the ball float before buying more stuff.
Cheers
Chimo
What could go wrong.......................
Thanks for the replies. I will get another pronged reef anchor and continue with the regular setup. As the saying goes If it ain't broke don't fix it, and it doesn't hurt to ask a question. Thanks
It wasn't until I started diving that I came to the realisation that you are simply not going to get every anchor you drop into the wrong sort of country back. They are way more imaginative at finding ways to get stuck than we could ever contemplate. Stick with the cheapest option if it actually does its job properly.
And smallest cheapest too!
Its amazing how well my tiny little reef anchor holds with 6 m of chain. (home welded four reo rods onto a short length of gal pipe with a reo loop opposite the hook end, to fasten the chain to)
What could go wrong.......................
yeah long chain on normal prong reef anchor. Never lost it. Rope is strong enough that it will straighten the prong way before breaking.
the bottlewasher in darwin was an anchor snagging dream. you could see where the anchor would hit then bounce through and weave into the wreck. I guess in that scenario you are never getting back. there were hundreds of anchors there.
Just another thought, sometimes, instead of brute force to get the anchor up, if you get directly above it, you can sometimes just "jiggle" a stuck anchor out of a snag, done that a few times now when the anchor ball failed.
Mooloolaba pick, drive off with floating ball as per normal and love it..
Chain attached to top of anchor and then run down the side of anchor and attached with cable tie to base so that it hangs as you would expect it too..
Drive off cable tie breaks and it is removed from above/top.
Never failed me and will often catch on ground where old style wouldn't however as stated there is a price tag attached!
Noel is on the money u need the right pick anchor for your size boat, i purchased a 14 foot Quintrex Fishabout very light tinny and it came with a 10-11mm pick anchor it was a nightmare to retrieve we would tie it up the front and floor the throttle the nose would dip than it would spring us backwards and almost submerge us because it was the wrong size anchor i really needed something in the 6mm range
i had a SwiftCraft 18.5 footer huge bloody glass boat had wrong pick anchor again because of the boats weight we were unable to grab the reef the pick anchor kept straitening out just from the wind and tide
experiment mate the cheap anchors do work or they wouldn't sell them, when u lose a anchor, 5-6 meters of chain, whole roll of rope = one pissed off fisherman i have been there and done it quiet a few times
plus trying to explain to maritime u just lost the anchor that day doesn't sit well with them u will likely cop a fine
An example as to how ancors are lost. In really rough territory - limestone reef country, the number of cracks, crevices and chimneys into caverns can be quite astounding. If you mange to drop your pick into a chimney or a crevice or crack that then narrows to a point it jambs and isn't wide enough for the anchor to pass through - 99.9% of the time you aren't getting it back. By the time you try and drive it out, the weight of a boat in any sort of offshore swell will have wedged the thing into the highest part it fitted in the crack and it simply drop down. A traditional pronged reef pick may come out with sheer brute force as it can be deformed and made smaller but anything else is staying put. If it's happening regularly in your spot X, there is half a chance it's this sort of country. We were diving a heap of this sort of country in Perth and it never ceased to amaze me at just how adept we became at dropping picks into areas they simply would never come back from without assistance from a diver before surfacing. Found some bloody good cray spots purely by accident when we dropped the pick straight into chimneys that turned into big caverns.
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